Sunday, July 14, 2013

For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

The house of God in this verse is more than the physical structure … it is the idea of the household … the people of God.

It seems, though, that sometimes, as Christians, we tend to really confuse the two of these things and become more interested in the structure of our church building than we do the people who are members or even those who are not yet members.

We worry about kids scuffing floors or marking on walls. We spend hours and hours discussing the proper color of carpet for the foyer and then invest time and effort deciding which pattern of dishes should fill the kitchen. If a candlestick is out of place on Sunday morning, the worship service becomes distracting to us; a burned out light is cause for multitudes of phone calls to the secretary on Monday morning and the placement of musical instruments in the worship center can cause nerves to fray across the spectrum.

We are easily confused by that about which we should be zealous. I am still struck by the passage from 2 Samuel we read several days ago. God was not nearly as concerned about a structure for his residence as David was. I’m fairly certain God isn’t nearly as concerned with our church buildings as he is with our behavior toward each other. It is in those relationships that we should be zealous.